Archive for the ‘Wages’ Category

The President is jetting off to North Dakota today to sell his farblunget tax plan. This WaPo piece reveals that D Senator Heidi Heitkamp is going with him. As the article puts it: The Democratic senator is expected to face a difficult challenge for reelection next year in a state Trump carried in 2016 by 36 percentage… Read more

In a few pieces out this morning, I make some noise about how unresponsive wage growth has been to the tightening job market, using the wage data from the Establishment Survey, which covers the private sector workforce. This is the key figure, showing that while wage growth clearly accelerated from 2 to 2.5% as the… Read more

–Ben Spielberg and I have a new piece out today on the drip of anti-worker rule changes, executive orders, and legislation from the Trump administration targeting worker safety, pay, and unions. I suspect that even for those who are paying attention, some of this wasn’t on your radar. –Speaking of unions–and we should be doing… Read more

I’ve long been a big admirer of Catherine Rampell, but her piece today on “unintended consequences” of pro-worker policies was uncharacteristically unconvincing. She goes after two specific upgrades to existing labor standards: the increase in the federal minimum wage from its current $7.25 to $15 per hour, and the increase in the salary threshold below… Read more

[I’m outta town with very shaky internet access, but wanted to make a tiny bit of noise about this.] I’m quoted in this story about a new paper on the Seattle minimum wage increase–it’s in the process of phasing up to $15/hr–as follows: “The literature shows that moderate minimum wage increases seem to consistently have… Read more

Jared Bernstein's areas of expertise include federal and state economic and fiscal policies, income inequality and mobility, trends in employment and earnings, international comparisons, and the analysis of financial and housing markets.